Parker Brodina/Photos by Noah Clooten
DEVILS LAKE — A successful regular season ended with a mixed bag for the Firebirds on Thursday.
Devils Lake, which has played quality baseball nearly all season long, split a doubleheader against a Valley City team that had only won two games all year. The Firebirds lost the one that mattered in the EDC standings, 8-3, before bouncing back with a 6-0 win in the nightcap.
“I think our guys were, to be honest with you, a little complacent,” head coach Brent Luehring said. “They knew that we were gonna host next week after West Fargo beat Sheyenne. That bothers me that they didn’t play as hard as we can, or didn’t do the little things as right as we can.”
They ended with a 16-9 overall record, and a 7-4 mark in the EDC. That makes them the No. 4 seed in the region. They’ll host their first playoff game on Tuesday against the three-time defending champion, West Fargo Sheyenne — a team they beat twice this season.
“I know that we’ve got a bad taste in our mouths today, but we’ve had a really, really good year,” Luehring said. “I mean, we were preseason No. 9 in the EDC, and come out and take the four seed out of 12 teams. We beat some teams that nobody thought we could beat. We definitely earned teams’ respect.”
But despite beating some of the top squads in the EDC, the Firebirds fell to a 2-9 Valley City team in Game 1. The Hi-Liners, peculiarly, scored in all of the odd-numbered innings and didn’t score in any of the even-numbered frames.
They got off to a 2-0 start right away in the first inning. A leadoff double came around to score on a groundout, and Jack Samuelson hit his first of two home runs in the game. Before Thursday, Devils Lake had only allowed two homers all season. Two of the four total homers have come against Parker Brodina, who started Thursday’s initial contest.
Brodina struck out two in a dominant second inning. But a sloppy third inning dug the hole deeper. Third baseman Jackson Baeth committed a two-base error to put Valley City in business. An infield hit and a walk loaded the bases, and a single through the right side brought home two runs. Another scored on an errant throw by catcher Trason Beck during a rundown between third and home, where Devils Lake wound up getting no outs.
“I think it’s focus,” Luehring said. “I think we kind of played on our heels. And I think we played more reactionary, rather than setting the tone and being more of the dictators.”
With the Firebirds trailing 4-0, and the bases still loaded with nobody out, the deficit could have become insurmountable very quickly. But, to Brodina’s credit, he managed to stop the damage there. A strikeout and a couple ground balls helped him get out of the inning with only two runs in.
And the Devils Lake offense responded by getting a little closer. Taydon Triepke walked, and Max Palmer collected the team’s first hit of the evening. Palmer has been swinging a solid bat lately, as he also collected one of the Firebirds’ few hits off top MLB draft prospect Drew Rerick on Tuesday.
A run scored on a passed ball and a throwing error by the catcher. Beau Brodina added an RBI single, and it was a 4-2 game.
P. Brodina shut the Hi-Liners down in the fourth. But then an odd-numbered inning came up again, and he labored. A single and back-to-back walks loaded the bases, and Valley City manufactured all three runners in. There were a couple more errors in there, too, with Brodina throwing a pickoff attempt away and B. Brodina overthrowing the catcher from left field.
Devils Lake was in a deep hole again, down 7-2.
In the fifth inning, Baeth ended a personal streak of six consecutive strikeouts with an RBI single. But the momentum, which was aided by an error on Valley City’s part to lead off the inning, was halted by a double play right before Baeth’s hit.
And that was the last baserunner Devils Lake recorded in Game 1. Carver Pederson threw a complete game for the Hi-Liners, allowing three runs (one earned) on eight strikeouts.
“I don’t know how you go from seeing 97 the other night, to seeing 72,” Luehring said, referring to Rerick’s dominance from Tuesday. “But I think he moved the ball around. He didn’t throw a lot of balls in the same spot. He kept us guessing, kept us off balance.”
Brodina’s performance was uneven, with seven runs (five earned) allowed in five innings, while striking out six. Palmer took over for him during the final two innings. He worked around a walk in the sixth, and surrendered Samuelson’s second bomb but nothing else in the seventh.
It was overall an uncharacteristically sloppy and lackluster performance for Devils Lake against one of the worst teams in the region. This season was defined by the Firebirds’ success against quality opponents, but they couldn’t get it done in the final game that counted towards their region record.
The second game went better. The Firebirds took the lead with two runs in the third, coming on a Fausten Olson RBI single and a wild pitch. Olson collected two hits in the nightcap to keep his hot streak going.
They essentially put the game away with four more runs in the fourth. B. Brodina and Will Heilman hit two-run singles in back-to-back at-bats, making it a 6-0 game. One of the runs was scored by Baeth, who was hit by a pitch twice in only three plate appearances.
Right-hander Ben Larson only allowed one hit in four scoreless innings for Devils Lake. He struck out three and only walked one. It lowered his season ERA to 2.45.
“His curveball was working, and he had control of his fastball,” Luehring said. “He was working over the outer half with a little run on his two-seam. When he’s throwing like that, he’s really hard to hit.”
With the Firebirds holding a comfortable lead, they brought Baeth in to pitch the fifth and final inning. Two hits and a walk loaded the bases with one out. But he recorded a strikeout, en route to escaping unscathed and locking down the shutout win.
So Thursday’s action ended on a fairly positive note, though the sour taste of Game 1 was clearly still stinging the backs of the Firebirds’ throats.
In any case, regardless of Thursday’s success or downfalls, the regular season is over now. The postseason is coming up, and the Firebirds have put themselves in a good position. It’s all about preparing for Tuesday now.
“I think we can make a run at this thing, if we do the things right and move on from today and we can put this past us,” Luehring said. “And hopefully this last game can trend in the right direction. We’ve got three days to get ready for Sheyenne.”
